Tag: statutory consultees

Announcements

Announcements from MHCLG are coming thick and fast ahead of this week’s budget and we had an announcement of our own at Town this week.

So, briefly, on 18 November 2025 there was:

Housebuilding around train stations will be given default “yes”

“Planning reforms to give greater certainty and strength for development around well-connected rail stations, including trains and trams, will be proposed through a new pro-growth and rules-based National Planning Policy Framework, which will be consulted on later this year.”

“The default “yes” will also apply equally across all local authorities, so that these benefits are seized across the country. The proposals will also include minimum housing density standards for these sites, expected to be exceeded in many cases, to make the most of sustainable growth opportunities for local housing, jobs, and businesses.”

This is all rolling the pitch for what will be in the consultation draft NDMPs next month (NB a convenient acronym – now that the NDMPs are to be non-statutory, I suspect that national development management policies may conveniently switch to national decision-making policies, perhaps less of a tongue twister or is that just me?).

What is “well-connected” and how will national minimum density standards be arrived at? We shall have to be patient and wait for the (large) pre-Christmas consultation package.

The announcement also included a separate proposal:

“Measures will also require councils to inform government when they’re inclined to block applications of 150 homes or more so ministers can decide whether to step in and make the decision instead, making sure that good housing projects don’t get lost. 

Particular attention will be paid to those applications where a planning committee intends to refuse it contrary to the advice of planning officers.

Applications called in by ministers will also be sped up through the removal of the mandatory requirement for inquiries, with the option to consider matters through written representations before reaching a decision where appropriate.”

This is big and will require legislation. But it could have a significant effect. In my view the biggest effect would be to create a cooling-off period where a planning committee has resolved to refuse a scheme for 150 homes or more against officers’ recommendations. Not only would the risk of call-in arise before the refusal could be issued but that delay would also lead to the opportunity in practice for the application to return to committee, potentially with a different outcome.

Given that almost 80% of appeals determined by inquiry are currently successful (possibly even higher when it comes to major residential appeals), this surely makes huge sense.

See the fascinating statistics published by Appeal Finder from which I have taken these screenshots:

Written representations determination of some call-ins is an interesting idea – a speedier call-in procedure would be so much more effective (see the way that the Mayor of London uses his call-in power for instance) but how many applicants, looking at these statistics will get nervous as to the prospect of their precious scheme being at the mercy of the written representations process?

Also on 18 November 2025, a consultation paper Reforms to the statutory consultee system was published, with responses due by 13 January 2026. Sport England, The Gardens Trust, and Theatres Trust are proposed no longer to be statutory consultees, with replacement “mitigations” put in place. The criteria are proposed to be tightened for consultation with seven national statutory consultees (see Anne1 for details): The Environment Agency, Natural England, Historic England, National Highways, the Health and Safety Executive, the Mining Remediation Authority and Active Travel England.

Lastly in terms of announcements, we at Town Legal seized that old 2010 concept of “open source planning” to publish our discussion document Simplifying & Standardising Section 106 Agreement Processes: Proposals for Reform which we were pleased to launch in the House of Commons this week through the auspices of the LPDF at an event sponsored by Mike Reader MP (and thank you Lord Charlie Banner for your supportive words too). What do you make of it? Do let us know. We are really keen to reduce the time it takes to conclude section 106 agreements, particularly in relation to small and medium sized schemes. I hope that MHCLG’s consultation package will touch on these issues as well. It is the unglamorous elements of the process that gum up the system, after all.

To quote always-glass-half-full Paul McCartney in that song from the Sergeant Pepper album: “It’s getting better all the time”. To quote John Lennon from the same song (maybe having seen MHCLG’ latest housing supply data on net additional dwellings – 6% decline in housing delivery from last year): “It can’t get no worse”.

Simon Ricketts, 22 November 2025

Personal views, et cetera

Cons & Pros

A list of the 25 or so current statutory consultees in relation to relevant planning applications is set out in table 2 of the government’s guidance, here.

The previous government appointed Sam Richards in December 2023 to carry out an independent review of the role of statutory consultees in the planning system, since when that, er, consultation disappeared into a large hole. Would the new government take up the cudgels? Sam Stafford’s 6 November 2024 blog post On Stat Cons is good on the subject, referring back to previous concerns raised by the RTPI and a series of suggestions that had been made by the Competition and Markets Authority. On 26 January 2025, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor announced a moratorium on the creation of new statutory consultees and committed to reviewing the existing arrangements.

Anecdotally, the statutory consultees where issues most frequently arise are surely National Highways, the Environment Agency and Natural England. True, the issues within their domain are often technically, and sometimes legally, complex, but how often does the local planning authority or applicant receive a relatively standard holding response or objection and then have to engage in lengthy chasing process to resolve the issue?

We now have action, but is it in the right direction? A press statement emerged from MHCLG overnight, Bureaucratic burden lifted to speed up building in growth agenda – GOV.UK (10 March 2025), followed by a written ministerial statement.

The headlines from the press statement:

  • “Review of statutory consultee system to promote growth and unblock building
  • Consultation on limiting the scope of statutory consultees and removing a limited number of them, including Sport England, Theatres Trust and The Gardens Trust in planning decisions, while ensuring necessary community facilities and needs continue to be met
  • Will also establish a new performance framework with greater ministerial oversight
  • Reforms will reduce delays and uncertainty on planning proposals, demonstrating the government’s Plan for Change in action”

The government will be:

  • Consulting on reducing the number of organisations, including the impact of removing Sport England, the Theatres Trust and The Gardens Trust.
  • Reviewing the scope of all statutory consultees, to reduce the type and number of applications on which they must be consulted – and making much better use of standing guidance in place of case-by-case responses.
  • Clarifying that local authorities should only be consulting statutory consultees where necessary to do so, and decisions should not be delayed beyond the 21 day statutory deadline unless a decision cannot otherwise be reached or advice may enable an approval rather than a refusal. 
  • Instituting a new performance framework, in which the Chief Executives of key statutory consultees report on their performance directly to Treasury and MHCLG Ministers.”

Sport England has responded as follows:

“The purpose of our statutory planning remit is to protect playing fields and community spaces for sport and physical activity.

“Britain’s childhood obesity crisis is rising and low physical activity levels cost our economy £7.4billion a year, making it vital we protect the places that local communities can be active.

“We support growth and exercise our powers carefully and quickly, ensuring local neighbourhoods are designed to help people live healthy, happy and active lives.

“We look forward to taking part in the Government’s consultation exercise and arguing the importance of protecting playing fields and places where local people can keep active.“


 It perhaps has a reason to feel sore. The government’s press statement picks out a particular incident where “In Bradford, a development to create 140 new homes next to a cricket club was significantly delayed because the application was thought to have not adequately considered the speed of cricket balls.” I decided to look into this one. It was in fact widely publicised, for instance in a 12 November 2024 piece Speed of cricket balls could stump housing scheme. Sport England had queried the applicant’s consultant’s conclusions as to risk, based on the consultant’s assumptions as to the speed at which the balls might travel. Was this so wrong in principle or was the problem one of the slowness or over-rigidity of Sport England’s reaction? It is not clear. 

I am a past trustee of the Theatres Trust and I was disappointed to see that the Trust is being considered for removal from the list. It is difficult to see how the Trust can effectively fulfil its statutory role under the Theatres Act 1976 of protecting theatres (widely defined) without being consulted on any planning application involving land on which there is a theatre or which will have an impact on theatre use. The Trust responded to 289 applications last year and, from my now admittedly historic knowledge of how the Trust operates, I would be surprised if any of those responses were late or unhelpful. 

The written ministerial statement gives this further detail as to the government’s intentions:

“…we will review the range and type of planning applications on which statutory consultees are required to be consulted and consider whether some types of application could be removed, or addressed by alternative means of engagement and provision of expert advice. In some cases, this could be done through undertaking more effective strategic engagement at the local and strategic plan level, reducing the need for comments on individual planning applications, and increasing the role of standing advice. We will consult on these changes in the Spring alongside the impact of removal of the organisations identified above, before taking forward any resulting changes in secondary legislation later this year.”

There is also the advice in the WMS that: “local planning authorities should limit consultation of statutory consultees to only those instances where it is necessary to do so. Local planning authorities must still consult with statutory consultees where there is a legislative requirement to do so, noting that if there is relevant and up to date standing advice published with respect to that category of development, then consultation is not required. Applications may need to be referred to particular statutory consultees outside of the statutory requirements where their expertise is required, given the nature of the development, but should not be referred where standing advice is sufficient.”. “Decisions should not be delayed in order to secure advice from a statutory consultee beyond the 21 (or 18) day statutory deadlines unless there is insufficient information to make the decision or more detailed advice may enable an approval rather than refusal.” “In those limited circumstances where the statutory consultee is expected to provide advice on significant issues and it is necessary (for example, on safety critical issues), appropriate extensions to the 21 day deadline should be granted so that sufficient and timely information is available to inform the decision.“

“To support timely and effective engagement with the planning system, we will also institute a new performance framework. As part of this framework, an HM Treasury and MHCLG Minister will meet annually with Chief Executive Officers of key statutory consultees in order to review their performance.” “Finally, the Government recognises that statutory consultees need to be resourced adequately, and on a sustainable basis to enable them to support the government’s growth objectives in full.”

Much of this is surely to be welcomed but I think we need to focus on ensuring that the main statutory consultees respond positively, effectively and quickly rather than simply cutting out those which look a little niche (they are – and when your proposals are in that niche that’s where their specialist input is so important). 

Simon Ricketts, 10 March 2025

Personal views, et cetera